Well, it’s been a long, but fruitful day. We got some good mixes of 5 of the songs. A little tweaking yet to do, but things are sounding good. Will be in the studio a major chunk of tomorrow as well. Has been really fun actually!!! But am now getting tired…

Just wanted to share another preview with you:

Click to listen to God Came the title song of our upcoming album!

Oh, by the way… it was 2 years ago today – 08.29.02 – that our most recent CD, Come As You Are was released!

Amazing. Been quite a couple of years.

So, you can still buy that CD at our store.

OR… even cooler (at least to me…) you can purchase the downloadable album or INDIVIDUAL SONGS at AudibleFaith.com! Check it out!!! We don’t make as much money, but it’s still cool!!! 🙂

Click Here to check it out!!

(They also have one of our other CDs… Lord, Hear My Voice)

The Republican National Convention will take place this week. And, as with the DNC, we will most likely catch a bunch of it. And we want to.

I like a bunch of those guys. Dick Cheney is crazy to listen to cause he just makes you say, “Man, he is SMART!” And President Bush is a funny guy. 🙂 It will be interesting to hear all of the ideas they have and the reasons they give us to vote for them.

And I have said before, I already know I want President Bush to go another 4 years. I think he’s doing a great job, and seems to be 100 times the man Kerry is. (Certainly in genuinity — to use a Bush-ism…)

But in the end… it does not matter who is president. It doesn’t matter who’s the governor, the senator, the school board president, or even the girl scout troop leader. (Well, ok, that proabably matters….)

In the end, neither politics, nor politicians, nor laws, nor legislation, nor anything external is going to make a difference in America. We will not help anyone in this country by electing the right person. That may move us in a good direction, in many ways… but really, the heart of the matter is… the heart.

By caring for a lonely neighbor, America is changed. By standing up for the down-trodden, America is changed. By giving generously to someone in need, America is changed. By sharing the hope we have in Jesus with someone who is hopeless, America is changed.

Only by living daily in the Kingdom, letting your light shine, if you will… only then will real change occur.

So, again, I am voting for Bush. I think he’s the better of our two choices… but in the end, the only thing that matters is how I live my life here.

Nations rise and fall (see Acts 17:22-31 – esp v 26) but the Kingdom and its King remain forever.

That is what matters.

The rest is just fun. 🙂

So… I got up at 5:30am this morning. That is at least 4 hours earlier than I would like to. And do you know why? Because I have to sing at 9:00am. NINE! We have tried this for years now, and it does NOT work. The voice was not meant to be used – or to sound good – in the morning. Perhaps by the 11:00 services… but even that’s a stretch. 🙂 Late afternoon to even like 10 or 11 at night… prime vocal time.

But not now.

So I get up at least a couple hours before singing and try to convince my body that 9:00am is more like 1:00pm. Sometimes that works. Other times, well… I’m just tired. 🙂

I vote for never singing in the morning again.

Anyone?

Anyone?

We sang at a local coffee shop last night, and that was cool as always… it’s a neat little covered outdoor patio that we get to sing on there… very cool. There was a small crowd of friends there, so it was an all around great evening.

AND, there was a crazy twist to the evening!

When we got there, I was setting things up with the girl who was running the place that night… and after a brief interaction, I thought, “She looks REALLY familiar…”

Now I was a school bus driver in this same town (Fairport, NY) for the 1996-1997 school year. And it occurred to me that she might have been one of my bus riders!?!?!? THAT WOULD BE SO CRAZY! She was at least an older high schooler, or older… (That made me feel kinda old, too…) 🙂

Then I finally thought I placed her… I had her (probably) older sister on my bus! I remember her, cause she was a nice, kind, quiet girl, who always sat in the front. She was strikingly different from the rest of the rowdy rowdikins… and I also remembered that every time I dropped this girl off, her family of considerable number would be out there to greet her. Lots of little girls that all looked just like her!

So, I asked Maria, the coffee house girl, what her last name was… and it seemed sorta familiar. Then where she lived, and indeed… I was right!! That was so crazy! I told her I drove her sister’s bus in 1996… she said, “I was in like 3rd grade then!” 🙂 At that point I said, “Yes. I’m old.” 🙂

Anyway, that was a fun blast from the past. That’s the closest I have come to seeing any of my bus riders from my bus driving past. She’s just a sibling… but that’ll do for a little blasty from the pasty…

Pasty?

🙂

There is a bunch of that in the Campbell house these days. We have obviously brought it on ourselves… but only because we know it is just for a time. Knowledge of that does not however make it easier to handle. 🙂

Stress makes life a lot harder. Every little thing sends you over the edge! You say things you wish you hadn’t. You feel like the whole world is out to get you. It’s crazy. A friend of ours is having a similar weekend, and you can tell that she’s at the end of her rope.

How do we get there? When is too much too much? What is the line for you? Is it defineable? I am not sure I could define that for me… but I know that lately the burden has been way too much. With all the things going on right now, impending deadlines on huge projects with far too many details to manage for any 10 people… and mostly I am trying to be the 10 people.

But once you’re there, what do you do? How do you keep from snapping at people? I asked a friend the other day to pray for me before our worship team rehearsal, cause I knew there would be moments where I would want to bite the heads off of some team members and spit them out on the floor… and I thought that would be bad. So, obviously asking God to help in our time of need is crucial… BUT, how do we reduce the stress level?

God gave us an oasis in the middle of stressland a couple weeks ago. It was nice to not have any events we were responsible for for a couple days… just to have fun as a family and ignore the pressures of life for a time. They did not GAIN pressure… but we gained composure.

So… besides a break (which is not always possible, like on this particular weekend) what sorts of things do you do to relieve stress? I am just looking ahead toward the end. 🙂 I know it’s coming soon… so I have a bit more tolerance that way… you? Any ideas?

Post your comments. But, don’t stress out about it…

🙂

So I was listening to the radio yesterday, and heard a guy who seems to me to be pretty level headed, and I agree with the majority of the stuff he says… and he was talking about John Edwards (the current vice-presidential nominee for Vice President).

Radio Man claimed that Edwards is solely responsible for a lawsuit that increased the cost of baby deliveries in hospitals… a LOT. Some malpractice thing. And his whole argument was not just the fact that it costs more, but that it was based on “junk science”. The costs were raised by an impassioned plea based on something that is not proven (or perhaps proven false?)

So, if you’ll recall a previous post… I said, I really think John Edwards seems cool. Like, just a real, passionate, cares about his country kinda guy. And this thing that Radio Man said did not necessarily prove or deny that, but it does again bring into question…

Who can you trust??

Really… is Edwards sincere and just duped? Or is Radio Man out to get someone of the opposing view point? The media all say varying things… and they are supposed to present us with facts so we can figure stuff out for ourselves. (That rarely, if ever, happens.)

And, if indeed he was sincere in his fighting for this law or case or whatever it was (which I have no reason to disbelieve, since everything I have seen from him seems to be genuine) … then he was duped by someone. So who can HE trust. He was only trying to do the right thing (hypothetically)…

Point is… wish it weren’t so crazy. You? There are so many varying viewpoints, and unfortunately a bunch of selfish, dishonest people trying to dupe the folks who just want to know the truth and do what’s right.

I still am voting for GW, cause I like him. But I will continue to keep my eyes and ears open for more signs of whom I can really trust. Let me know if you know what those signs are…

Today, Aug 26th, 2004… is my FIRST BLOG ANNIVERSARY!!! 🙂 I think I am going to call it a bloggiversary. Sounds good.

So what should I write for my bloggiversary blog? Shouldn’t that be something special? Something thought through with great care taken to communicate with each word exactly what I am trying to say so that the reader is right there in my mind with me? Shouldn’t it be the best there ever was?

No. 🙂

The point of this blog, you may have noticed… is an ongoing, stream-of-thought kinda chronicle of what God is doing around me (as seen through my eyes, so I miss a bunch of what he’s doing, but what I do see, you hear about usually…) To ruin that with a polished, finished, well-planned blog… just for my bloggiversary… seems silly.

🙂

So… this is my blog about nothing… but just wanted to celebrate that today marks ONE FULL YEAR of blogging. 🙂

Thanks for reading. More to come…

Another quick thought for today…

We often notice that the church as it is today is not like the church as we see in the New Testament. They were much more about community and less about structure and program and organization. I could go on and on about that…

But I noticed something today. A friend called. He is alone in life. And I am happy to chat with him when I can. Today, I happened to be busy, so I told him I’d talk with him tomorrow. But after I hung up I noticed…

THAT’S IT!!!!!

The church is about that guy. Not about the programs and plans to reach many more. It’s not about HOW MANY people we reach, it’s about reaching the ones God puts in front of us. My bro-in-law is a proponent of putting energy into making churches bigger (not for that purpose, but for the purpose of reaching more people). That is his main reason… to reach as many as possible.

What I was pondering today was… perhaps it’s not about that. Perhaps it’s not about how MANY we can tell (especially all at one time…) But about living a life of faithful obedience to God with everyone whom He places in our path. Really! WE get so caught up in trying to reach everyone around us that we actually MISS the people that are right around us!!! ARRGGHHH!!!!

Jesus was so good at noticing the unnoticed. At loving the unloved. I think that’s what he wants us to do. (Whatever you do for the least of these is what you are doing for me…) And we do… but we are so trapped by our programs and buildings and meetings and schedules that we have a hard time slowing down to do what we know we should… love our neighbor.

So remember, it’s not about how many – but how we deal with the ones we meet each day. God will handle the bottom line. 🙂

You know… really… one of the cool things about Star Trek (that as most things on that show, would probably not work in reality…) is the way they do commerce. There is no money, they all just “share” the resources they need. That’s not always explained… but I think the general idea is, you work for the good of everyone. You do what you do for everyone else’s benefit, and in return they do what they do for you. Seems to make at least theoretical sense.

Well, remember we mentioned our awesome simple church community we are part of… with our neighbors and others. We are meeting again tonight, and all bringing pieces of a dinner so we can eat together. Very cool. Probably will end up doing that a bunch more as (1) it allows us more time together and (2) it’s just the BEST way to hang out with folks… over shared food.

And the other day, a bunch of us went to the Sprayground (A cool local water park) and it was just so funny to see how we all had each other’s kids in each other’s cars… we are just one big community. 🙂 We shared our lunch stuff… our toys… just very cool in every way.

THEN, after that… some of our friends watched our kids, (while we took another friend’s kid… getting confused yet??) to go get some groceries for some other friends who are struggling financially at the moment.

THAT WAS SO COOL! I wasn’t going to write about that, cause it’s fun to just do good stuff, but I really want to encourage you all to be wildly crazy generous like that! IT IS SO COOL! I had just spoken with our friend the night before, and she said how they could not even buy groceries… and after the phone call, I saw that we had some money in our “Kingdom Fund” (a portion of our income that we set aside for God to use when the opportunity comes up) and Jen agreed that we should stock their cupboards for them!

SO… we did! And it was SO GREAT!!! For everyone!!

And what do we expect in return?? NOTHING! Not a thing! But what will probably happen? If we ever need something… who’s going to help us? THEY ARE! OR, if not them, any of our other friends with whom we share life. (AND OF COURSE, our awesomely generous family! We both have parents who are incredibly generous!)

Point is… communism, in it’s good ways.. works. If we all would use what God has given us to benefit others when they are in need, it will usually come back around. Jesus talked a bit about that. The early church did that. No one was in need. Everyone shared everything in common. And Jesus said whatever you “give up” in this life, you will receive back 5, 10, 100-fold back in THIS LIFE and the life to come.

Point: it is WAY better to give than to receive. And so if everyone did (like communism? i think?) then we’d be set. Really. I don’t mean like China or N Korea or Russia or any of those kinda communisms… steal from the rich, keep everyone poor and dependent on the government… I just mean this:

Acts 4:32

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.

Acts 2:44-47

All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Cool, eh?